There is an increasing number of websites being defaced and hacked. Once a website has been defaced or hacked, website owners would typically attempt to quell the situation by redirecting users from the defaced or hacked website to a website replica (a backed-up or previous version of the website). This method of “restoring” the website removes the presence of the defaced website and also gives the impression that the problem has been solved while backend engines determine the source and cause of the defacement.
There are anti-defacement solutions available in the market that back-up webpages to create website replicas and restore websites with the website replicas. FortiWeb 5.0.0 is one such solution. FortiWeb 5.0.0 works by backing up the content on the webpage only. FortiWeb does not backup database driven content which does not reside within the page itself but instead resides in a back-end database.
However such solutions suffer from the disadvantage that the website replicas which have “replaced” the original website may still not be secure. This is because whatever vulnerability in the website that resulted in the defacement or hack in the first place, may still very well persist in the website replica. In such a scenario, the replacement of the original website with the website replica actually exacerbates the problem as hackers will still be able to deface the website replica or via the website replica, hack into databases and extract information sensitive data.
An example of this is when the website replica displays text boxes or text fields on a typical “Contact Us” page. The vulnerability in the website replica may be that these text boxes or text fields have not been configured to filter out improper queries or have not been set to properly validate the input being entered into the text boxes or text fields. Hackers can therefore exploit these vulnerabilities by using code injection techniques such as SQL injection or cross-site scripting to extract out database contents and gain elevated access-privileges to sensitive page content. Worse still, the unsecured website replica may give the website owner a false sense of security, all the while being oblivious to the fact that hackers are extracting sensitive information from the unsecured website replica.
Thus, what is required is a novel method and system for creating a website replica that is secure such that when defacement or hacking occurs and web traffic is redirected to the website replica, the website owner can be assured that website replica will not be vulnerable to further attacks from hackers. Furthermore, other desirable features and characteristics will become apparent from the subsequent detailed description and the appended claims, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings and this background of the disclosure.